


truth is the first casualty

by karples



Category: DCU (Comics), Gotham City Garage (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Comic: Gotham City Garage, M/M, Oral Sex, Some comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:47:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23050420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karples/pseuds/karples
Summary: It’s exactly what Roy wants after weeks roaming the Freescape, where smooth sandstone formations cast eerie, tapered shadows that the homesick eye wants to resolve into human shapes.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Roy Harper
Comments: 15
Kudos: 58





	truth is the first casualty

**Author's Note:**

> part of the Great Google Drive Migration. written in 2017. i hit a massive writer's block, so i wanted to write something more casual in style to push myself out of it, but that made me too anxious to post it for a while :')
> 
> looking back on this, i realized i was kind of fond of some parts and thought i might as well wrap it up and upload it since i'm cleaning house.
> 
> the title on the original doc was "truth is the first casualty"; i'm not sure why i chose it, but it's here to stay.

Days and nights are never dull in the GCG. They bust rigs and gut Gardeners and disturb the peace; they derail shipments and hijack trades. They menace, they disrupt, they complicate, and though they ride hard and fierce through the shadow of the valley of the Bat, they will fear no evil, A-fucking-men.

\--

Two weeks before the return of Wonder Woman, Roy swaggers into the garage loaded with loot still hot from the wreck and bragging rights. He earns a couple of slaps on the back, a couple of drinks on the house, and several drunken toasts to his skill in causing general mayhem. All par for the course, except that the person whose welcome Roy desires the most is conspicuously missing.

It’s odd, if not downright concerning. Dick only skips homecoming parties if he’s on a heist or if Roy’s in the doghouse, but Natasha told Roy that Dick was in, and Roy hasn’t stepped on any of Dick’s Bat-shaped landmines lately. Which leaves option three, the scandalizing, the unspeakable--that something else, something more important, has monopolized Dick’s attention--and Roy’s not a huge fan of second place.

Dinah calls it an inferiority complex crossed with abandonment issues. Roy calls it having priorities.

Feeling snubbed, Roy conducts a thorough search of the premises and tracks Dick down in the repairs shop, his dark head bent over the engine of his bike, gloved hands darting into hidden crevices between wires and valves. The sight of Dick’s back is so familiar that Roy’s heart rate accelerates in anticipation. He almost says something damning, like _did ya miss me_ , but then he notices the blonde kid rattling off questions rapid as a machine gun. 

Roy drags Dick into a side-hug. “Babe,” Roy says in greeting. “Aaand... new girl.”

Dick flashes Roy a smile, there and gone so fast that Roy almost doesn’t feel it cut him.

“Kara Gordon,” Dick says. Roy raises both eyebrows. “Meet Roy Harper, your local weapons enthusiast.”

“Gordon, as in _that_ Gordon?” Roy asks.

“Um, yeah, I think so,” Kara says.

Roy’s jaw drops. “Well, shit. What’s Garden meat like you doing here?”

“Her name’s on the naughty list, that’s why,” Dick says.

“Doesn’t look like you’ve been good either.” Up close, Dick’s wingcycle has smoke stains and torch marks licking up its carapace. “The hell happened?”

Dick and Kara exchange glances. Roy’s mood instantly sours; he’ll never get over getting left out, even when it’s unintentional, because someday ‘left out’ will turn into ‘left behind.’ Damn it, Dinah’s right about him after all.

“Amazo happened,” Kara says grimly.

“All right, all right, rub it in. I get that it was amazing, but what _was_ it?”

Kara pulls a face. “It wasn’t amazing, it was _Amazo_.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Dick resumes tinkering on his bike. “In other news, Kara can fly and fire laser beams out of her eyes. Cool, right?”

“Yeah, cool--way too cool to be true.”

“Save your breath, Harper, interrogation’s our job,” Grace calls from the back entrance. In the yellow moonlight, her silhouette is lean and mean, the shadows unable to hide the pistol on her hip. “Kid. Natasha wants to talk to you.”

Kara leaps to her feet as if electrocuted. “Be right there!”

Without waiting for Kara to catch up, Grace begins walking away. Over her shoulder, she adds, “Glad you’re back in one piece, Butch.”

“Shaddup,” Roy says. Thankfully, the reference soars over Dick’s head; he doesn’t watch oldies, Roy’s learned not to ask why.

Next to Grace, Kara looks so young and small, shrinking as she scampers toward Natasha’s office. Roy’s seized by a misplaced pang of protectiveness: Lian will have changed since Roy last held her, but she’s young and small, too. Roy doesn’t know how to help her survive a world where second chances are rare as rain in the Freescape.

Lian’s also hundreds of miles away, prisoner to a reinforced glass dome designed to withstand attempts at forced entry.

Ever intuitive, Dick says, “Kara’s not as fragile as you think. She hits harder than Donna did.”

“She does, huh?”

“Mmhm.”

That’s a wound that will never heal in them. The thought of Donna exhausts Roy, and he hunkers down beside Dick, nosing the sweaty, sensitive hollow under Dick’s jaw in a bid for attention. Dick squirms but doesn’t protest. “What are you...”

“‘It wasn’t amazing, it was Amazo’?” Roy echoes.

“Surprise, surprise, Luthor’s got a secret weapon.”

“That’s not what’s eating at you.”

“Nothing’s eating at me.”

“You didn’t come in when you heard our convoy,” Roy says, trying not to sound petulant and failing. “Something’s eating at you. If it’s not Amazo...”

In the back of Roy’s head, the Bat-shaped landmine radar starts tingling.

“Oh, fuck,” Roy breathes.

“Yeah, okay,” Dick says.

“‘Okay’?”

“Okay,” Dick repeats, smiling. “Let’s fuck.”

The simple, no-nonsense way that Dick says _fuck_ sends a shiver down Roy’s spine. “Well, I mean. You really don’t have to ask me twice.”

Dick laughs with exactly the right amount of edge. “Welcome back, hero. Missed ya.”

Roy’s heart skips a beat. “You did?”

“’Course I did, you ass. I’m not heartless.”

“Hey, a guy can’t be _too_ sure...”

Roy keeps underestimating how much annoyance Dick can pack into one kiss. The first is more of a hard peck; the second is deep and experienced and perfect. “Too sure of what, that I missed you? Or that I’m not heartless?”

“C’mon, Dick, that’s semantics,” Roy murmurs against Dick’s cheek.

“Apparently a guy can’t be _too_ sure.”

“Touché.”

Roy’s never pretended to be difficult to please. He’s easy, almost distressingly so, unraveling in Dick’s warm and willing arms. They both haven’t showered, their bodies smelling unwashed and oily and animal and a bit gross, and that’s exactly what Roy wants after weeks roaming the Freescape, where smooth sandstone formations cast eerie, tapered shadows that the homesick eye wants to resolve into human shapes.

Removing his gloves, Dick licks his palm, slow and deliberate, his tongue soft and pink. He unzips Roy’s pants, taking Roy into his hand, and Roy’s hips jump--“Ah, hell,” Roy hisses, and Dick jerks him with a kind of thoughtfulness that Roy still finds disorienting. Roy wants to make fun of it, to lessen its effect on him somehow, but he hasn’t the heart to do it. Maybe he has too much heart to do it.

Instead, Roy squeezes his eyes shut and pants, head rolling back, sinking, sinking, desperately searching for an anchor in this self-imposed darkness. As they kiss, he twists his fingers into Dick’s hair, silky black strands taut against Roy’s knuckles. Roy holds on so tight that it stings, a feeling adjacent to pain. It must hurt more for Dick, though Dick doesn’t seem to care. He never does.

Dick crawls down and lowers himself onto his elbows. His lips part, opening around Roy, and Roy groans, loud despite himself. The sensation alone is too much, he can’t bear to watch; if he does, he’ll surely catch a glimpse of Dick regarding him with that sympathetic, too-discerning gaze, and he’ll burst apart at the seams. 

There’s nowhere to run or hide. Dick coaxes out every weakness, every fantasy and guilty, unspoken pleasure, and disassembles it, studies it, like prodding at old bruises until the pressure feels like relief. And then he returns it, as if it wants to be returned, as if it _can_ return to haunting the same old corners like it used to. As if it wouldn’t rather Dick keep it where he keeps his other secrets. 

Tears spring to Roy’s eyes, unbidden. He can feel it building in his gut, in his stomach, the urge to weep, the desire to come. 

Dick’s startled. “Roy?”

“Don’t stop,” Roy murmurs. Having Dick near and close and within reach feels suddenly overwhelming and precious, like the phenomenal gift of joy. “Please, please, don’t fucking stop.”

Wordlessly, Dick guides Roy to the edge and sends him over with the practiced twist of a wrist. When Roy tries to return the favor, Dick shakes his head, holding Roy close as he continues to fall. 

“It’s okay, Roy, it’s fine,” Dick says into Roy’s ear. “I’ve got you.”

Once Roy’s somewhat steadier, he realizes that he isn’t embarrassed about crying at all, which is as surprising as it is welcome. Is this what people call growing up? “I owe you one,” he croaks. 

Dick rests his head on Roy’s shoulder. “You don’t owe me anything.”

Above them, the gray cables in the ceiling twine and gather in loops like a forest canopy from the storybooks that Roy used to read as a child. Visible through a hole in the corrugated tin roof, the sky runs thick with Milky Way stars. Roy hates stargazing on principle; he’s insignificant and helpless as it is, he doesn’t need a view of the cosmos to inspire an existential crisis. But he’s got Dick lying against him, both of them drowsy and silent, so he can live with a crack in the roof.

Minutes or hours later, Dick says, “It’s Bruce...”

Roy squints, following the direction of Dick’s unfocused gaze. “You mean Betelgeuse?”

“No, no, _Bruce_. During the run-in with Amazo, we broke into a facility. Turns out my retinal scan and fingerprints weren’t wiped from the Lexes’ database.”

Just like that, the spell’s broken. “That’s... one hell of an oversight.”

“Not an oversight,” Dick corrects absently. “He’s still waiting for me to come back.”

Roy scoffs. “Shows how much he knows about you.”

“Or how little.”

“Same difference.”

The silence returns, heavier this time. After some fierce internal struggle, Dick admits, “It’s been so long, I imagined he’d be over it. One runaway ward of the state.”

“C’mon, who are you kidding? Are you over it?”

“He wasn’t always so bad. He was a good teacher, once.”

“Yeah, well...” Troubled, Roy tightens his hold on Dick’s waist. Unlike most GCG vets, he doesn’t miss the so-called Golden Age; beneath the surface of that mythic, bygone era must have been the seeds of the Garden, patiently waiting to bloom. That hindsight poisons even the fondest of Roy’s childhood memories, but it’s not the same for Dick, who might need this one lie more than any truth: that the world used to be kinder, that part of the past can be redeemed.

“You can’t save everyone, Dick.”

“I know.”

“Bullshit.”

Dick shrugs. “Believe what you want.”

“That doesn’t matter. We’re talking about what _you_ believe.” Roy hesitates, choosing his next words more carefully. “So, humor me for a sec. D’you ever think it’s enough to be here? Not forever--just for now, the way we are now. Could that ever, you know. Make you happy?”

The question hangs in the air, ripe with implication. Dick’s bright stare burns on Roy’s cheek, and Roy ignores it so well that he almost misses the touch of Dick’s fingertips to the back of his hand. Phantom and faint, like the brush of a cobweb. Then Roy can’t unfeel it, can’t stop feeling it, even when it drops away.

“Are you calling me greedy?” Dick asks, quietly.

“No, I’m calling you a worrywart.” Equally quiet, Roy adds, “It’s not always so bad, is it? You like the Freescape. There’s not a body out here that could tie you down.”

Somehow, Dick manages to turn a sigh into a laugh. “I don’t know, Roy. I’m not so sure about that, anymore.”

And if that sounds like a promise, Roy can only hope to Lex-damned hell that it’s not simply the power of his own wishful thinking.

**Author's Note:**

> i had plans to extend the fic but unfortunately only completed this section. the rest went something like this:
> 
> 1) the gcg lays siege upon the garden!  
> 2) roy reunites with lian--but almost loses his life to the bat!  
> 3) dick swoops in for the dramatic, impeccably timed rescue!  
> 4) wonder woman returns, making everything instantly better!  
> 5) dick and roy abscond with lian prior to bruce's trial, because dick just can't be around for it, and they ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after.


End file.
